#2526 - JD Vance

[00:00] So the last time we talked, last time I saw you, we were at a cage fight. [00:17] At the White House. That's right. [00:19] That's... that's... one of the craziest experiences of my life. It must have been one of the craziest experiences of your life. Oh, yeah. It took me like two weeks afterwards to recover, just to like... [00:30] Did that actually happen? It seems so insane. Okay. The most insane part of it, which I guess... [00:37] was before you got there, to me at least, is you come into work every day in the White House.

I have an office in the West Wing. There's the Oval Office in the West Wing. [00:47] and you look out the window, and as this eight-story complex was growing up, [00:53] It was just the most unbelievable thing. It's like the South Lawn of the White House, but you've got the eighth wonder of the world being built up around it. And every day I'd look at it and be like – it would take me a couple seconds and be like, what the hell is going on? And I'd be like, oh, yeah, it's UFC.

It's UFC coming in a couple weeks. The whole thing was surreal. First of all, it was crazy that the weather – [01:14] Just went around us. Like there was a real moment where the fights would have been postponed until 1030 m. to start. Correct. And last minute, the storm just diverted. That's right. Well, and, you know, this book that I have that I guess we'll talk about a little bit, but the book tour started the next day. [01:37] So I was flying to New York the next day to talk about it.

And all I could think about is every time we got the update from White House weather, oh, it might not start until 1030. I was thinking to myself, holy shit, that means I'm going to go to bed at like 4 m. I'm going to look like a total crazy person when I'm trying to go talk about this book. But, yeah, amazingly it did work out. But, honestly, it actually helped a little bit because, as you know, it was hot as hell out there. Yeah. And it was super humid mid-June in

C. [02:07] And I think the weather actually helped cool it down a little bit because by about 10 o'clock or so, I was not thinking it's hot as hell out here anymore. Yeah, it wasn't too bad. But I talked to Justin Gaethje about it, and he said it was a problem when he was fighting. He said the air was very thick. OK. Like right after the first round, he was like, boy, this is rough. It's that hot, humid air. And, you know, it's fine walking around. I mean, it's OK walking around.

It still feels it is a swamp, right? [02:38] So that's obviously June 14th. That's the president's. That's not why they call it the swamp. That's one of the reasons why they call it the swamp. They call it the swamp because of my colleagues, too. Because it's filled with mud and water and gunk and shit and swamp monsters. Oh, man. So that's June 14th. So that's the president's birthday. That's also – that was my 12th wedding anniversary. Oh, wow. And my wife – so that's the one thing. Like if somebody runs in here, it's because my wife's going into labor because she's like 39 weeks pregnant.

[03:07] it. [03:08] I remember we go out to dinner like right before the UFC fight, and we're, of course, checking the weather report to figure out what's going on. And my wife normally likes to come to the cool stuff of being vice president. That was the one where she was like, it's hot, I'm super pregnant, and I'm not going to sit out there for six hours. Yeah, I couldn't imagine. Also, it was just there was so much chaos, and the potential for real chaos was always there. First of all, you have the ellipse.

[03:38] what 85,000 people outside that's right for people that are watching at home like we could hear them like when the fights when when something would happen like kind of a delayed way yeah yeah you hear the cheers from the people that were near so it was like 3 000 plus people tightly close to the octagon and then you had 85 000 people in the background it was very eerie yeah i actually [04:08] a good punch in or you get a takedown. And then it was almost like the wave because there was the initial center of it and then the people outside of it.

It was pretty sick. It was pretty sick. I think Dana said not once in a lifetime. [04:23] Not once in a generation, a once in a lifetime experience. Yeah, I mean, it's once ever. I don't see any other president. I mean, if you become president, you're not going to do that, right? [04:33] I don't know, man. I didn't want to do it in the first place. It's actually very cool. It's a very cool thing. It was very cool. Get it over with. Do it once. It was the only time in the history of the sport where there's been seven stoppages, seven knockouts.

[04:45] Like every single fight was a knockout. Oh, I didn't realize that. Yeah, every single fight. Okay. The thing is, like, we've had seven knockouts in a card. I think this last weekend we had ten, ten stoppages. [04:58] That was different because it was like 14 fights. That's right. This is all fights. Every single fight was a knockout. So the last fight, when did you realize that was over? With Conor? Yeah. [05:08] Um... [05:10] When he fell down the second time, I was like, oh, this is not good. The first time I thought he just slipped.

[05:15] It's hard to tell. It's wild. It's in the moment. I thought he slipped. And then when he got up and he threw a kick again, I'm like, oh, I don't like how his leg just gave out. That didn't seem like – I'm still hoping he's just slipping. Yeah, yeah. I'm hoping he's just freaking out because he hasn't been in the octagon in five years. And then he started moving around, and he, like, grabbed his knee and buckled. And there was some conversation. I didn't notice that. Yeah, there was some conversation going on between him and Max Holloway, and I was like – [05:43] You know, Max is saying he can't fight, like something's wrong.

[05:46] And he's saying, fight me. He's like, get up. And so he lets him up, and then his knee buckles, and then the referee stops to fight. Okay. [05:53] Yeah. [05:54] Yeah, it's always... I think it was the very last fight where... [06:00] the ref tried to call it at the end of the third round. [06:03] And then... [06:04] Because he was saying that there was a concussion issue. I mean, I couldn't tell what was going on. This is the Ilya Tapurio fight? The Justin Gaethje fight at the White House?

Yeah, the Tapurio-Justin Gaethje fight. No, he couldn't see. Okay. He was saying he couldn't see well. Something was wrong with his right eye. Well, I mean, it looks like his whole face was puffed up, so he couldn't see anything. But, okay, so I thought it was a concussion thing, but it was because of his vision. No, they never did that. I mean, the concussion thing would only be if someone had been battered. There's a lot of times where fighters are fighting with concussions. Yeah. It happens all the time. [06:34] You get dropped in the first round, you probably have a concussion.

Yeah. You get back up, you keep fighting, you're fighting on these things. There's been many times where fighters wake up in like the fourth round. Sure. And they've fought three rounds and they don't remember it at all. Oh my God. I know. That's pretty crazy. Not the best way to make a living. Not the best way to make a living, man. Yeah, so we saw Gaethje at the White House a couple of weeks ago. [06:58] Yeah, I saw that. I asked him, I was like, so are you done fighting? And he kind of hesitated a little bit.

And then I think it was his mom was in the Oval Office with him. She's like, yes. [07:07] Yeah, but... [07:09] You know, if they offer him... [07:11] some life-changing money for one more fight. After that performance, I have a feeling he'll take it. Like, what is... [07:18] What could he fetch for his next fight? Like 50 more? It's a good question. [07:23] I don't know what his contract is. I don't know how it works. I don't know what the most anyone's ever – I try not to pay attention to that stuff.

Yeah. Because – [07:31] I'm not on the business end of the sport. Yeah, it can kind of color your perception a little bit. It can, and it's also... [07:37] I mean, I want them to get paid the most amount possible. That's my perspective. Yeah. But my job is just to analyze and to see what's going on and to commentate and try to give color and life to what's happening inside the octagon. And I try not to dwell too much on the money. I just want them to get paid a lot.

I want them to be able to retire and never have to do anything ever again. Sure. I don't know if Justin could do that. [08:07] you [08:07] And, like, there's still – obviously boxing is still a big deal and fighters still get paid a lot of money. But, like, I remember when I was, I don't know, in high school, I feel like people would get really excited about the big heavyweight title bout. Now it's the UFC thing. So culturally it's like UFC has taken over boxing. And I don't – I mean I don't know how or why that happened.

Like I don't know if it's just good marketing or if just the fights are so much more real and intense. [08:37] shift that's happened in 20 years. This episode is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. We all like to find ways to save ourselves some time, like ordering out for dinner or meal prepping so you don't have to cook during the week. If you're a business owner looking to hire, a great time saving hack is ZipRecruiter. Its newest feature lets you meet the most interested, qualified candidates first. Try it out free at

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Because all the fights are exciting. With boxing, most people are just there for the main event. And a lot of people don't even stroll in until like 15 minutes before the main event. - Sure. - Like all the famous people that sit in the front row. - Yeah, yeah. - In the UFC, that place is packed [10:00] You know, five, six, seven fights in. Yeah. You know, and there's 14 fights in the night, and all of them are amazing. It's like, in the beginning, it's usually like half full. [10:11] Depending on where you are.

If you're in a place like Salt Lake City, it's pretty packed right away because they only get one event every year or so. [10:18] But it's just a more exciting sport. There's more ways to win. It's more dynamic. More things happen. And there's more stars. There's so many stars in the UFC. So I'd never seen a fight live before. Like I've watched them on TV, but I've never been there live. So kind of crazy that it's literally in the South Lawn of the White House. But the thing that I found completely shocking about it was I would think those arm bar takedowns are just done.

Like that's it. You're over. [10:48] Somebody had another person's arm. Yeah, that was Josh Hogan and Derek Lewis. [10:54] Bless you. And it's like, holy shit. Yeah, he just was. You're going to have your arm broken off, and yet he didn't. [11:01] He wasn't doing it right. Okay. Josh Hokett is a great wrestler. Yeah. And he's an excellent fighter. Yeah. [11:07] But he's not really a submission specialist. I mean he did get the arm bar, but he didn't do it right. He was basically like pulling on – you have to elevate your hips and you have to create space so that the arm is bending back this way.

His arm is essentially flat to his chest, which is not what you want. What you want is a back arch like this. See like how it is right there? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what he wants to do here, what he should do, instead of having his hips down and his knees up, [11:37] And elevate the hips up and pull it way back. So he'd almost be bridging. He would be on the top of his shoulders and bridging. And then he would have broken his arm. The other option is you pull it off to the side like this.

Yeah. [11:51] and you put it to the side of your hip and you can break it that way. Okay. But it's just bad technique. Okay. So watching it. No offense, Josh. Yeah, yeah. Watching it, I didn't realize that. I just could not believe that dude held out for like 30 seconds. Was that more shocking or when he said Michelle Obama is a man? Which one was more shocking? [12:11] Definitely the arm bar part. I work in politics. People say crazy stuff all the time. Well, he says that every fight. [12:19] Does he?

Yeah, yeah. He said that the last time I interviewed him. Oh, man. Well, it's – he's like a pro wrestling character. People lost their minds about it. I know. Lost their minds about it to the point where, again, I had the view either the next day or the day after to sort of promote this book. That must be fun. It was crazy. It was harder than anything I've done in politics. [12:49] about Michelle Obama being called a man. What are you going to say about it? And I was like... [12:55] What an amped up fighter told a joke after a fight, said something after a fight.

And that's actually national news. I'm still surprised. I've been in politics now for three, four years. I'm still shocked the shit that people get really fired up about. Well, I kind of understand it because it's at the White House. First of all, a cage fight at the White House is crazy already. I mean, if he said Michelle Obama's a man at the T-Mobile Arena in Vegas, it's like, okay. That's a lesson of a story. What he is is he's a very good fighter, first of all. [13:24] And but... [13:25] Sometimes it's not enough to get attention.

And so what Josh has done is created this persona, like this pro wrestling bad guy persona. When you talk to him offstage, he's like very normal, very smart guy. Yeah, yeah. It's just like he's decided, like, look, I want to maximize the amount of eyeballs that see me, and I'm going to create this crazy persona. He comes out to the Hulk Hogan song. I'm a real American. That's right. That's right. He has sunglasses on, American flag, bandana. It's, you know, he's. [13:55] I love the presentation, but again, like – Not the best thing to say at the White House.

Michelle Obama's a man. It's not the best thing to say. Fair, but the reaction to it to me was still totally disproportionate. Yeah, of course. Dude, people say stuff all the time, and – [14:12] What I – okay. [14:14] I work in a business where obviously people make life and death decisions all the time, and I'm always a little bit caught off guard by – [14:24] the culture that just overreacts when clearly the thing that Josh is trying to get is the overreaction in the first place. Right. So you give him exactly what he wants.

And like the worst you could say is, oh, that was an offensive comment. And you get on with the rest of your life. Like, that's the worst that you could say. The people who really flip out about it and kind of lose their minds. I just I don't understand that. [14:54] Correct. And there's a lot of people that are just – for lack of a better term, they're not real. Their reactions are – [15:04] performative like a lot of what they're doing is just trying to trying to comment on things and get clicks and likes and views and social media has ruined discourse in a lot of ways because people as people are not having like real conversations about things they're reacting to things on Instagram and Twitter yes and [15:26] They look at an opportunity like that like, oh, I found a gold nugget.

This is going to give me money or this is going to give me attention. Oh, I can't wait to have a take on that. That's exactly right. [15:43] Oh, he was being funny. He was being outrageous. And I just move on with my life. What I find very interesting is the people who say, you know, oh, that was a joke. Like when when kill Tony, you remember he told like the Joker around the world in Madison Square during the 2024 election. I remember getting into an argument with somebody about this.

And I may have been like in an interview, but I don't remember. It could have been private to. Anyway, I'm like he told a joke. [16:08] And the person's response is, well, it's not a very funny joke. And my response to that is, you know what happens when somebody tells me a joke that's not funny? [16:16] I don't laugh and then I move on with my life. This whole industry around outrage, especially getting outraged around humor, I think is actually really hurting the country. [16:28] Well, in that case, first of all, I told Tony a long time ago that joke was going to get him stabbed.

I really did. He jokes around about it on stage. He talks about me telling him, that's the one, dude. That's the one that's going to get you stabbed. [16:43] Any good joke at least is going to run you some risk of getting stabbed. Well, certainly a racial joke, and that joke being about Puerto Rico. By the way, no one takes a joke better than Puerto Ricans. Puerto Ricans are some of the best people at telling jokes. It is a culture of joking and fucking around with each other and talking shit.

They're great at it. They love him still. There are some Puerto Rican guys in the Marine Corps, man. That's absolutely true. They love him still, even after that joke. [17:13] him not to tell that joke well i was kind of half joking you know tony that's what tony does you know what i just said that's the one that's going to get you stabbed but i mean that's what tony does tony is like the josh hokit of comedy like he but very talented you know he's a really good he's a roaster he's like roasting his is his specialty but it's also like he's trying to ruffle people's feathers that's what he wants to do yep he wants to piss people off like that's he likes [17:43] pro wrestling fan.

Well, so Tony... [17:47] I'm a huge fan of his comedy. I've only met him a couple times. I don't know him particularly well. But he's actually like... [17:54] you know, [17:54] More political, I would say, than most comedians. Do you think it's there? Yes. Okay. So – Well, very supportive of like Trump. Like he's on the Republican team. Yes. He's on the Republican team. 100%. It's because he's experienced so many loony left-wing people in California. Yeah, yeah. And that's why he had to move. Well, somebody sent me a clip. I think it was Shane Gillis at a roast where –

[18:17] The joke was they were roasting Tony and they're like, Tony Hinchcliffe is the only dude who would be excited if D. Vance was here. [18:27] And I was like, one, that's a very good joke. And number two, I feel like I had made like there have been a few moments where I feel like I've made it. You're the vice president of the United States. I think you made it. When South Park spoofed me, I felt it more than when I got it sworn in as vice president of the United States.

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[19:56] Plus, get free shipping. Just go to com slash Rogan. This offer is for new customers only. Yeah, Tony is, I mean, that's his style. Like, he loves being the heel. He's in Austin, right? He gets kicked out of it. Oh, yeah. He's one of the first people that moved out here with me. Okay. [20:15] Yeah, I mean, we've been here for six years now. Yeah. [20:17] And every time we go back to California, we're like, we were right. Yeah, absolutely. We were right. It's falling apart. It keeps going further and further down the toilet.

How do you feel like Austin is going? Yeah. [20:29] The criticism of Austin, call it five or six years ago, [20:33] Like it's a cool town. It's got its own unique culture. It's Texas, but it's also its own thing. But that all of the Blue Staters moving in were going to like totally change the politics and the culture of Austin. I actually don't think that's happened. [21:03] in San Francisco, they're falling apart. And I have a bunch of friends that are stuck there that can't move. Like maybe they have family there or maybe they have a business there.

And they fucking hate it. And then I have a bunch of people that are trying to move, but they can't sell their house. [21:21] Like it's nuts there, man. I don't think people – first of all, you get gaslit by Gavin Newsom. I mean he's just gaslighting everybody about how well – oh, the GDP is like the fifth largest country in the world. That's what California is. It's like, dude – Hey, bro, it was like that before you were the governor. Yeah, exactly. Also, how much does a U-Haul cost if you're leaving California and how much does it cost if you're going to California?

Because that's the real measure of whether a state is doing well. [21:51] in and that has never happened before. - Correct. - California, when I moved there in 1994 until I left, it was always every year traffic got worse, every year more people moved there, every year. [22:02] I loved it. I loved it. I loved it from the time I moved there. I was like, this place is great. It's warm all the time. The weather's fantastic. There's so much cool stuff to do. The people are great. And then politics ruined it.

That's right. So my wife's from Southern California, San Diego. And so we spent a fair amount of time there. And I just, I mean, I still feel a certain sense of like... [22:26] heartbreak over LA. Oh, I do. Because every time I'm in LA, you can see why this was like the quintessentially American city. The architecture is beautiful. It's got its own vibe going. Like you said, the weather is amazing. And then you drive through Skid Row and you're like, [22:41] How could any state or any city let this happen?

Skid Row is now 55 blocks. [22:47] It was 50 blocks just like a year or two ago. Okay. So my first experience with Skid Row was – so Usha used to work at this like very fancy litigation firm in Southern California. [23:02] Before she was a second lady, she was a corporate litigator. So there's a Christmas party in downtown LA, and you get these instructions from her firm, and they're like this really convoluted way of this is how you have to get to this Christmas party. And I'm like – [23:16] Why do I have to follow these directions?

Why don't I just put it in Google Maps, right? This is like five or six, seven years ago. So we realize that the reason why they gave you these convoluted directions was so that you could avoid skid row at night. And so – [23:31] You get to this party. You drive through Skid Row if you follow Google Maps' directions. You get there, and it's like this beautiful facility with, like, fancy food and fancy wine, and then there are armed guards outside of it and these gigantic walls. And I realized when I was there, you know what this reminds me of?

This reminds me of going to the S. Embassy in Port-au-Prince, Haiti. [24:01] squalor and misery on the outside. Like, it's the first time I'd ever thought America, like... [24:06] This part of America is actually more like a third world country than anything that I thought we'd ever become. Let me ask you this. Yeah. Why is it that large population centers like places like Los Angeles and New York are almost always run by the Democrats? Yeah. Like what is it about – first of all, what happened with the last election – [24:29] in Los Angeles, just the primary, I think was so super sus.

Yes, it is. And here's why it's super sus. Not just super sus that Spencer Platt – [24:40] Spencer Pratt, who is in second place. [24:43] got overtaken by Nithya Raman in the mail-in ballots, but that the mail-in ballots also passed a tax hike. The people voted to pay more taxes in a state where you have the highest taxes. That's right. They're like, we don't pay enough. [25:03] That is insane. And then when you have direct evidence that they were recruiting homeless people. That's right. [25:13] Cigarettes and cash. There's evidence of this.

[25:15] To use their address and mail in ballots. Yeah, I wouldn't be the Californian Joe who wakes up in the morning and says, you know what? I'm going to go and vote for higher taxes. I don't pay enough. I don't pay enough taxes. I feel like we can fix this if I just pay 5% more taxes. The crazy thing about it, too, is it's that, okay, so after the initial ballots all came in, it was Karen Bass was number one. Spencer Pratt was right behind her. And then number three, whatever this woman's name is.

Nithya Raman. Nithya Raman. Okay. [25:45] You would expect the mail-in ballots to be more or less like the original ballots in terms of one, two. I'm not saying Spencer Pratt is going to win the mail-in ballots. But it just so happened that the third-place person in relative terms did a lot better than the first- and second-place person. Disproportionately better. Such that the Republican was actually kicked out of the race so that there's not actually a real election in California. That, to me, was the crazy part. [26:15] Put the third person into second place.

That to me is like very, very bizarre. Because what is the theory of the mail-in vote that is somehow like – [26:25] So much more pro-Nithya relative to Karen Bass. Makes no sense. [26:31] Why would it be? Why would it be? I mean, Karen Bass was ahead by every metric. Yeah. But, I mean, okay, so you ask the question. Why do all these blue states or why do all these big cities, population centers end up becoming – [26:45] end up becoming blue. And I think it's like a very complicated, right?

So one thing, and you said this a few months ago, and like when you said it, I was like kind of annoyed by it. But then I like thought, there's, there's like an element of truth to it, which is that Republicans still fundamentally have a cool problem, right? There's something more charismatic, more cool about the Democrats as opposed to the right. And so I, [27:11] You said something about... [27:13] there are too many dorks or something on the right. There's a lot of dorks. You know, fair. I'd say there's a lot of dorks on the left.

There's a lot of dorks on the left, too. It's a different kind of dork. Yeah, yeah. It's a different kind of dork. But the point is that there's something, you know, like... [27:25] OK, if you're a pop star, you're a rock star, you're an actor, you're in all these cultural centers, you're more likely to be left than right. And so I think that a lot of young people who are attracted to these population centers, they sort of move along with the prevailing culture. I think that's that's one thing that's going on.

I think a second thing that's going on is the people who are sort of attracted to a certain kind of right of center politics. They want. [27:51] The suburbs, they want the single family home, they kind of want to be left alone, they don't want sort of to be able to hear what their neighbors are doing. So I think a little bit of it's just cultural self segregation. And that's meant that a lot of these population centers have gone blue. But it's very complicated. I thought about this a lot. And I also just man, I like...

[28:09] I'm not one of these people who says we should just abandon California to the Democrats, like let them deal with their own problems. I think California is like a quintessential part of the American dream. Like if you just abandon California, you've like lost something very core to American culture. And I just – I don't want to give up on it. Like I'm not saying we're going to win California in my lifetime necessarily, but I don't like the idea of giving up on it. Well, it's not just giving up. I mean giving up on it would be terrible.

It's an awesome state. [28:39] problem is it's [28:41] deeply corrupt. I mean, deeply, deeply corrupt. And what they're trying to do is make it impossible for the other side to win. And there should be laws against that. First of all, the idea of mail-in ballots for anybody other than people who are invalids, [28:58] who can't live their homes or military or people that for some reason they're serving overseas, they're doing something overseas. It should not be legal. [29:06] And the fact that it became ubiquitous during COVID is a giant problem.

Yeah. So this raises one of my total segue here, side point. But so if you remember in the aftermath of the 2020 election where there was all this debate about was the election stolen, was the election not stolen, all the litigation that moved through. There was a case in Pennsylvania that didn't get very much attention. And I'm going to butcher it a little bit. [29:36] we didn't have the opportunity to do the mail-in ballots like they did in Philadelphia and Pittsburgh. And like the argument was a kind of disparate impact, right?

The cities ginned up all the mail-in balloting and the ballot harvesting. You didn't do that in the country, and that hurt sort of our representation. So they take this case to the Pennsylvania courts. And what's crazy is the Pennsylvania courts basically say, you're making kind of a good point here. Like the ballot harvesting did affect Republicans in a more negative way. [30:06] more rural parts of the state were underrepresented. But then the court conclusion was this is not a problem a court can fix. Like that's a political problem. Change your local elections leaders, change your laws.

Like that's not a remedy that the court has to fix. And so everybody saw that case and they're like, oh, the judge rules against Donald Trump, rules against Republicans for saying that there was something illegitimate. But no, actually, the judge kind of said there is something kind of fishy here. We're just the wrong venue to fix it. [30:36] Mm. Well... [30:38] It's just very disheartening that you have to consider the fact that – [30:45] it's really possible that the elections get stolen. [30:48] And the California one was a big one for me.

And why not just have – [30:53] mail-in or why not just have voter ID? Yeah, you actually solve... Well, that's insane. Not only did they not have voter ID, you can't show your ID. You're not allowed to show your ID. You can, in fact, be prosecuted if you try to force somebody to show their ID. Which is, that seems like you want people to cheat. Exactly. And this is from the same people that were saying you have to have an ID that shows you've been vaccinated just four years ago to go to a restaurant.

To go to a restaurant. Yeah, no, it's definitely... [31:20] That's the part about it. [31:22] that I think makes most people of my political persuasion skeptical of what the Democrats are doing. Like if you don't want to cheat in the election – [31:31] then just make everybody... [31:32] actually show an ID. The other thing people don't realize is, I didn't realize until a couple years ago, [31:38] The voter ID solves a lot of the mail-in ballot problem because if you have to show an ID in order to get a mail-in ballot, in order to actually confirm that there's a real identification attached to that vote, that solves a big chunk of the problem.

This is just logical. [31:55] Every country does it. I'm not skeptical. I'm accusing them. I think they stole the election. Yes. And I think it's common. [32:05] And I you know, this idea that [32:07] elections can't be stolen. I always say to people, okay, do you think that [32:12] The amount of election fraud is 0%. [32:16] No one thinks that. Yeah. No one thinks it's zero. Exactly. There's always some overzealous person that works somewhere that's doing something. There's always crazy people. Correct. They're like blue no matter who. We got to win or red no matter what.

There's always people. [32:30] Right and left that are going to try to rig the election because they think it's imperative. Like, look, we saw there was people like Oprah Winfrey was saying it. Like, if we don't win this election, you may never vote again. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? Like, why? Who's going to tolerate that? Left or right? That's crazy. That's right. But that attitude allows people to justify cheating. Correct. And I think they cheat. And I think they've been doing it forever. [33:00] no voter ID. And they try to say, oh, it's racist to have voter ID.

Like, what are you talking about? Do you think other races are incapable of going to the DMV? That's insane. It's it's it's that's actually super racist. The implication of their argument is literally like blacks and Hispanics cannot go to the DMV to get an ID. By the way, if you look at the polling, black Americans are as pro voter ID, even though most black Americans vote Democrat, they're still pro voter ID as much [33:30] Most Americans are voter. They want voter ID except for operatives. So I'll offer on the Joe Rogan podcast this deal as vice president of these United States that if Democrats really don't think that there's any cheating, give us voter ID.

I just don't know how it's not. Give us voter ID and we'll stop talking so much about elections. Why is that not a federal thing? We are trying to make it a federal thing. So we are right now trying to pass the Save America Act. One of its main provisions is a requirement that you do voter ID. [34:00] have, I think, a majority of the Senate that would support it. But this is just weird Senate procedural bullshit. There is a subsegment of people. [34:09] who want voter ID but won't blow up the filibuster in order to achieve it.

[34:14] And so they're so married to these old world Senate procedures that they're [34:19] They're going to make it impossible for us to pass Save America. Now, for what it's worth trying to fix that and trying to address these, like, weird procedural archaic things. It's insane, though. Like, have you ever – okay. [34:32] I'm sure you hear people talk about the filibuster all the time. I don't want to go too far down this rabbit hole. Here's what the filibuster is. It is a pure Senate rule. It is a creation of the Senate procedures, which basically says that anything that has to do with the budget is a 50-vote threshold.

And anything that – everything else, non-budgetary, is a 60-vote threshold. [35:02] and count at 60. So what we have tried to persuade the Senate to do is to treat the [35:08] the voter ID as something that can fall within the 50 vote threshold. And there is no law. There's no provision in the Constitution. It is legitimately that there are senators who are so attached to the idea that [35:22] budget is 50, non-budget is 60, that they're quite literally willing to prevent... [35:27] Voter ID in America. [35:29] God. [35:31] It's nuts, dude.

It's so crazy. And it's also like... [35:36] the idea that [35:38] Somehow or another, like Kathy Hochul had the craziest take on it. She often does. Did you see her take on it? I have not. She was talking about black people in inner cities not even knowing what a computer is. Did you ever see that? No, I didn't see that. Oh, my God. It was so crazy. And then this one comedian, this black comedian, did this hilarious video where he was like circling around a computer, staring at it, like touching it, like he didn't know what it was.

[36:08] about. Everyone has a phone. That's a computer. So many of these democratic talking points [36:14] presume that their own voters are actual idiots. [36:17] That's actually there's a big difference between, you know, Republicans. We sort of presume that our voters are adults and you don't see that with I'm not saying every Democrat, of course. I don't want to cast too broad of a brush here. But it's like, you know, Gavin Newsom did this speech a few months ago. The president, I think it's the funniest thing ever because he's like speaking to a group of black leaders and black businessmen.

But it's like an audience that is 95 percent black. And they're asking about his dyslexia and his struggle with education. [36:47] "Yeah, you know, I'm not very smart like a lot of you." [36:50] I'm like you, I can't even read. Meanwhile, there's a ton of interviews where he's talking about all the books he reads. Like he's so full of shit. He's admirably full of shit. I admire the sheer tenacity that he has in being full of shit. Because it's amazing. It really is amazing. But it speaks to the incentives of there's kind of like...

[37:18] Look, there's a real populism that I'm very much a fan of because I think you should be responsive to people. But there's like a faux populism of the way that I'm going to appeal to people is by assuming that they're idiots. [37:30] And acting like they're idiots. Yeah. And then – but if you're committed enough to that bit, eventually it kind of leaks out what you're doing. And I think that was sort of what Gavin did there as he told on himself a bit. [37:41] Yeah. Well, it was just – he's bizarre.

I will say – He's a bizarre guy. So I've only met Gavin – I think I've only met him one time in my life. [37:50] and [37:51] It was... [37:53] is such a crazy experience. So the debate between Biden and Trump, [37:59] during the 2024 cycle. [38:01] And I'm there. I'm actually doing an interview for a documentary when the debate starts. And there's this clip of me. The debate starts. I'm in the middle of this interview. There's a big screen behind me as I'm talking to the camera, which is here.

And I kind of freeze. [38:15] And I look back at the... [38:16] the TV and I'm like, oh my God, like this is actually happening. Biden is imploding because if you remember, it was obvious from the get go. So I go to the spin room afterwards. [38:27] And that's where, you know, all these reporters and all the surrogates of the candidates is before I was the VP nominee. And I'm just like, you know, talking about how great the president did, how bad President Biden did. OK, I see Gavin Newsom there and he literally looks like he's seen a ghost.

Like I've never seen a person who as good of a bullshitter as he is, who realized there was no selling that performance. Like, but can you imagine, like, try to put yourself in the perspective of a human being. [38:57] debate and you have to go on CNN to talk about how great of a job Joe Biden did. Well, my favorite is Joe Scarborough because Joe Scarborough before it was like, you know, I'm going to say something and F you if you can't take it. This is the sharpest Biden we've ever seen.

Have you ever seen that? No, I haven't. Oh, it's amazing. And then after the debate, he's like, we got to get rid of him. He's got to go. He's got to go. Hey, hey, hey, what did you say? Yeah. [39:22] You just said a couple of months ago, this is the best Biden ever. That's wild. [39:27] I wonder what was going on with that because like the debates were earlier than they've ever been before. [39:33] And it seemed to me it's like. [39:35] There was a concerted effort to hide what was wrong with him.

100%. 100%. Everybody was bullshitting. Everybody was gaslighting us. We all saw it. I remember a friend of mine who's super progressive, super liberal. I talked about it on a podcast. I'm like, this is crazy. Even if he wins, he's not going to be the guy that's the president. You're going to have his cabinet that are running everything. Turned out I was right. And they were saying, oh, don't you understand that he has a stutter? [40:03] And I said, where the fuck was that stutter in the 1990s? Like, that's crazy. That's right.

Like, a stutter that only shows up when you're 80? That doesn't make any sense. Yeah, yeah. Like, this is a lie. You're lying. He's had two brain surgeries, like, where they have to take the top of your head off. Literally, they have to take, like, a cap. [40:23] Wait, Biden had two brain surgeries? Oh, yeah. How did I not know this? You didn't know this? I didn't know that he had two brain surgeries. He had two brain surgeries. [40:32] Jimmy, please look this up. Make sure that I'm right. I'm 99% sure I'm right.

But I know he had one that was like a little... Did he get a refund afterwards? Well, it kept him alive. It kept him alive. I mean, he... [40:44] Here, Biden has not undergone recent brain surgery. He underwent two successful life-sazing brain surgeries to repair two intracranial aneurysms in 1988. [40:57] That's pretty crazy. His medical professionals have stated that he made a full recovery and suffered no lasting brain damage or cognitive impairment from these procedures. Oh, it's from The Washington Post. So, you know, it's accurate and definitely not biased at all.

And these medical professionals, were those the same people that said that the covid vaccine is safe and effective? [41:15] It's, it's, we live in a wonderful time for bullshit. It's like, cause they don't bullshit you right to your face. Like we do. You have two brain surgeries, like major brain surgeries. Cause he's having an aneurysms. I don't care who you are. That's probably going to do some damage. It's going to leave some, aneurysms are a real problem. That's a real thing. Your brain is bleeding. People die from aneurysms all the time.

See, the crazy thing is I never even knew about that. How'd you not know about that? That's nuts. I knew about it. Well, it speaks to. [41:45] how constrained our media environment is. Even I had never heard that. Right. It was not a part of the narrative. It's certainly not from the Democrats. But yeah, he's – it was clearly – [41:55] I just don't understand why they ran him in the first place. [41:58] The whole thing made no sense. And then to have no primary and just stick Kamala in there.

And then all of a sudden pretend that she's the best thing ever. And this idea, complete flip of her being the least popular vice president ever, always sticking her foot in her mouth, always saying crazy shit. How dare we say Merry Christmas? Remember that one? [42:20] What are you saying? Like joy is bad? Merry Christmas is bad? Legitimately, when the campaign consultants told me, hey, we're going to hit this line because Kamala Harris came out in favor of taxpayer-funded sex changes for illegal aliens. And I remember thinking to myself, come on, you guys.

Like she didn't really say that. It's taken out of context. And then I go and look at it. I'm like, holy shit. She actually said that. [42:50] worst version of what the Democrats were producing in 2020. The thing is, it was – they were all doing it because that was the incentives of the party. Like, if you remember that debate where it was, do you want taxpayer-funded Medicare for illegal aliens? [43:05] which like Medicare is the program to provide health care to the elderly that people pay into for like, you know, your entire working life.

You see your little Medicare tax statement and the idea that we were going to give taxpayer funded health care to illegal aliens. It was just insane. It was a 90 10 issue. But their party in 2020 got kind of taken over by the radicals. [43:35] nonprofits, the donors are pushing the party in a direction that most of the voters haven't gone in. Like you ask why Joe Biden was the nominee, and I'll say something in defense of Joe Biden. [43:46] So, like, was he the most effective politician? No. Had he had two brain surgeries?

Yes. And clearly had shown the negative signs of aging. But he was kind of the only candidate, if you go back to 2020, who could hold together like the reasonable middle class black American in the Atlanta suburbs with. [44:07] Whatever is going on on the far left of the Democrat Party. And I think this is sort of the issue their party has. I mean, our like to be candid, our party has its own coalition problems. And it's it's always tough in a two party system to hold everybody together. Like I think about this a lot.

I think it's really tough on the Democrats because the core of their party, like the most important voting bloc in the Democratic Party is middle class black Americans. [44:30] socially moderate to even socially conservative, maybe a little bit more economically populist on certain business and tax issues. You know, they don't want to give tax breaks to major corporations. They also don't want to trans the kids. That's the base of their party. But then you've also got like – [44:46] the crazy people. And you have to kind of hold that together.

I think the argument for Biden was, [44:53] He was one of the only people who could hold that together, even though he was an awful politician in his own right, even before he was old. Well, it's because he was Obama's vice president. And he's established. He's a known name. And for the people that were kind of casuals who weren't really paying attention to politics, he's a proven commodity. That's right. He doesn't read as a crazy person to the general electorate even though – I got hairy legs. [45:23] He's like, I'll tell you about cord pop.

Like, what? Oh, man. What the fuck is going on? The thing I couldn't get over Biden is just bad staff work, man. The way that he ate ice cream. [45:33] I mean, it's like – we could bring some of this stuff up, but it's like they would get him eating ice cream in the most ridiculous, suggestive way imaginable. I never even paid attention to that. Oh, my God. I never saw the ice cream. Such bad optics. Okay, so there's a clip I want to say from the 2016 – [45:51] campaign where somebody is campaigning in Iowa.

And the Iowa State Fair is one of the main things you go to when you're running for president. And they give somebody a corn dog and somebody eats the corn dog. And it becomes like a major news cycle for a long time. And I will never forget in 2024. This is how I am and sure we are. I know. You got to have a little fun sometimes [46:21] And Vivek's, one of Vivek's events, Vivek Ramaswamy's events. And the sign says, eat the corn dogs, you coward. It's one of the best political signs I've ever seen.

That's funny. That's funny. Yeah. You have to be a very manly man to be able to eat a confidently, confidently eat a corn dog. I don't know that I could do it, Joe. [46:41] I eat them. They're good. Yeah, but. They taste good. Are you, I love corn dogs. I've been photographed. You've been photographed eating a corn dog? I'm sure someone has. What are the. I've eaten corn dogs. The odds are. Much worse in life than I've led. I try to eat my corn dogs. That's between, that's between me and my kitchen.

I'm not scared to eat a corn dog. I just think it's funny that people just, they're so afraid of being anything that looks like a dick. You can't. Bananas, corn dogs. [47:11] politics. This is an optics-based business here. What are those popsicles? The ones that... Yeah, I get it. I mean, but it's just like, that's how crazy we are. That's what weirds people out, the way someone eats a hot dog. [47:25] Like, okay. Well... [47:27] That's where we are, man. Yeah. [47:30] It's – the difference between the crazies and the real reasonable Democrats is so stark to me.

And it's also – with the right, it's like we're always – the parties are always defined by the worst examples of the right. That's right. Or of the left, whatever it is, whether it's Patriot Front or whether it's Antifa. [47:57] Okay, so who do you think is the worst example of our side? Like, who do you read about on our side and your reaction is, holy shit. [48:04] And don't say D. Vance. This is going to be a very awkward interview. [48:07] I'm screwed with you. [48:09] Well... [48:10] The people that...

[48:12] I had James Tallarico on the podcast, and one of the things that I think he has a really good point about, even though I know you're Catholic and you're very religious, putting the Ten Commandments in schools – [48:24] I don't think is the right way to do it. And this is a guy, Tallarico, who was in seminary and is very Christian. He just thinks that even though he believes in the Ten Commandments – [48:37] If you're just only representing the Christian faith in these schools, you're forcing your religion into other people's lives and that this is going to push people away from Christianity rather than encourage them.

[48:52] to pursue it. Yeah, I mean, I think you'd ever want to force things on people. And I do, I think one of the core Christian contributions to Western civilization is the idea of freedom of religion. It's actually very much a Christian idea, because you recognize the dignity of each individual. And part of recognizing that dignity is that each person has to find their own pathway to God. You can't force this on anybody. I don't think putting the Ten Commandments up in school is like [49:22] I mean if you're going to do that, why not put Buddhist scripture?

Why not put Muslim stuff? You could make an argument why you should have a bunch of different religious tenets in schools. I think in the Supreme Court there actually are a lot of different sort of historical cultural legal documents that are up there. And I want to say that Moses coming down with a tablet is one of them. [49:52] that a big part of sort of the law-giving tradition in Western civilization is some of these religious texts, not exclusively Christian religious texts. Obviously, some Jewish, there's like an important contribution from the Muslim world in this.

So I guess I don't think of it as exclusionary while also recognizing that, you know, America is a society. Our founders were people who were very much influenced, even if they weren't Christians. [50:22] by Christian culture and articulating American law. So my argument would be, even if you're not a Christian, like does seeing the Ten Commandments, [50:33] let me put it a slightly different way. [50:35] Does seeing the Ten Commandments force religion on a non-Christian child? I mean my argument would be no, and I'd illustrate this by saying, well, there are all of these ways in which you actually could try to force religion on a child, right?

Well, it's not the worst way to force religion on a child, but to have it and not represent any other – this is Texas by the way. So what he's talking about was that there's these – [51:00] Christian nationalists, these guys that are very wealthy, that are trying to fund – [51:06] Christian schools and trying to defund public schools or any other kind of religious school. And what they want to do – and they passed this to get the Ten Commandments in all public school classes. And he's fundamentally opposed to that as a Christian because he thinks it's going to force people to have this in their class and it's going to push people away from Christianity.

I mean I understand the argument. I just don't see it that way. [51:36] there and I see the Ten Commandments, at the very least, I think I can appreciate it. I mean, you know, what if you're a Hindu? What if you're a Muslim? And, you know, and you are seeing that represented, but not your faith. Well, it's a public school. First of all, I think that you... [51:56] You... [51:57] I mean, I'm pretty sure Muslims, I'm not hardly an expert on Islam, but I think all of the Abrahamic faiths recognize the Ten Commandments as like a significant thing.

But I think if I was a Hindu looking at the Ten Commandments, I mean, again, it's hard for me to say this, right, from my perspective, but I certainly went through an atheist phase in my youth. And what I would see that as, as a non-religious person or a different religion, is I would say this is like an important cultural thing. [52:23] element of the Western civilization, which is the foundation of the classroom that I'm sitting in. And this idea that the law comes in a sort of above any man, even if you don't believe in God yourself, I think that's like an important concept.

I mean, if you look at the Ten Commandments, probably eight of them are something that I would hope that everybody would agree with, even if they're not themselves religious. So I guess here's my view on it. Like, [52:50] I would not be offended. [52:52] If I sat in a classroom as a Christian or if my kids sat in a classroom as a Christian and saw... [52:58] you know, a religious text that wasn't Christian on the wall. I would encourage them to see that. No, I'd encourage them to see that as a learning experience.

What if it was from the Koran? What a bunch of statements from the Koran. I guess it depends on what it was, right? If it's like something crazy. But no, I mean, if it's something that is like culturally interesting, I guess I don't have a problem with my kid reading something. Because the problem is it's mandated.